Erik Johnson: Focus on saving lives, not restricting gun rights

1:22 AM,
Feb. 2, 2013

Written by

Erik Johnson

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Based on widely varied comments in the newspaper recently, some people barely know it exists; most do not know what it means.

So what does the Second Amendment actually mean?

Well regulated does not mean a militia can only use regulated arms. It means the militia is well formed or capable. Some have argued that personal-use firearms should be regulated to armaments of the day, but this is a baseless ...